John Geiger

This is the account of the fate of the Franklin expedition in the frozen Arctic in 1845, almost 176 years ago. The story is told by forensic anthropologist and the coauthor, Owen Beattie. Beattie discovered that the role of lead poisoning played a large part in the disaster that struck the 1845-48 Franklin Arctic expedition. Franklin's expedition was made up of over 100 men and 2 ships. The ships vanished, bringing out dozens of search parties to take on the formidable task of searching the Arctic looking for an answer to what had happened. Eventually, wrecked boats, scribbled notes, human remains, and Eskimo tales all combined into a horrid tale of cold, starvation, cannibalism, and leading to the death of the entire crew. But what the exact cause of the disaster was never actually discovered or agreed upon. Along with recounting this historical account, the authors describe Beattie's two recent expeditions to Northern Canada to closely examine the recovered relics of the Franklin party. On King William Island in 1981, Beattie and his team found portions of a skeleton with knife marks that gave truth to the tales of cannibalism; also, the bone fragments contained high levels of lead and evidence of scurvy. On Beechy Island in 1984, the team exhumed the bodies of three seamen buried in makeshift graves in 1850. Exposed in a set of astonishing color plates that will nauseate some readers, these bodies--essentially well-preserved 130-year-old mummies...provided the strong supporting evidence, through autopsy and lab reports, for Owen Beattie's theory that poisoning from lead dinnerware and lead-soldered food tins contributed to the Franklin expedition's deaths. It's a strange scientific detective story, Is this all the facts and is the mystery of the Franklin Expedition's disappearance truly resolved by modern scientific methods? Some say "yes" but others say the scientific knowledge of the day may not have been enough to support the given cause at that time. I found that some threatening polar bears added a bit of suspense, and if that wasn't enough, be warned...the very graphic pictures have undeniable impact. However, this detailed account of anthropological legwork will more than likely only appeal those interested in polar regional accounts.... or folks like me that needed an Arctic book to complete a challenge:)… (more)

The truth about what happened to the lost Franklin Expedition was a mystery for more than a century. Frozen in Time tells the story of the Expedition and the search missions sent out to determine what had happened to the crew. The Toronto Globe & Mail hailed it as a "Canadian classic" when first published in 1987. The book went on to become an international bestseller. One of the authors, Owen Beattie, is a Canadian anthropologist. The other, John Geiger, is an editor, author and the current CEO of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

On May 19,1845 two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, set sail from England. Led by Captain Sir John Franklin, the ships and their crew set out to discover the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage. In July of that year the whalers spotted the ships in Baffin Bay between Greenland and Canada. After that last sighting, the expedition and its crew of 129 men was never heard from again.

The audiobook lays out the known events of the Expedition. It also covers the early searches sent out from England after the ships did not return, and the more recent anthropologic efforts. Those early searches found evidence for cannibalism among the starving, stranded crew. The 1980s exhumation of frozen bodies and their amazing state of preservation are discussed in some detail. It’s quite the chilling tale and one I found hard to pull myself away from.

In the early 1980s, Beattie led anthropology teams on trips to what was then part of the Northwest Territories of Canada. They examined sites that earlier searches had identified with crew members of the lost Expedition. In 1984 they returned with forensic evidence from the exhumed and autopsied bodies of three Franklin Expedition crew members. The bodies had been buried on Beechey Island in the frozen North of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago .

What Beattie and his teams discovered when they analyzed that evidence led them to a new and surprising conclusion. They found that lead poisoning played a significant role in the deterioration of the health and ultimate death of the crew members. High concentrations of lead in the men’s bodies was traced back to lead used as solder in the cans of supplies brought aboard the ships. Chemical analysis confirmed the solder as the source.

The audiobook is a “revised” edition (corresponding to the 2017 paperback revised edition). Despite the fact that later teams reached different conclusions about the cause of death than Beattie's team had, his conclusions remain in this edition. This may make the book somewhat dated, but it didn’t matter to me as the new theories only change a small part of what the book covers.

The Expedition’s ships have also been discovered since Beattie and his team did their work. The wreck of the HMS Erebus was discovered in 2014, and the HMS Terror in 2016.

For a book about polar exploration and the hardships and loss of early explorers it’s hard to beat the story in this book. I give Frozen in Time Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.… (more)